A Guide To The Best Cladding Colours for Your House
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Colour — there aren’t many design choices that are quite as important, particularly if you’re cladding your home!
From the ever-popular and versatile to the daring and unusual, let's walk through the most stylish, modern options.
When it comes to cladding, we think solid timber always looks best, but these colours are also available in composite or PVC.
1. Reddish brown — warm, modern and versatile
One of the most perennially-popular choices for house cladding is Western Red Cedar.
This timber species of wood offers an alluring mix of warm reds, browns and salmon pinks that add character and natural beauty to almost any house. These shades can complement your home’s exterior brickwork, or provide a nice contrast.
Vertical orientation is the choice for a particularly contemporary look, but horizontal is no less stylish.
2. Grey — contemporary and Scandi-inspired
Fresh and understated, grey cladding is a hot trend amongst design-led DIYers and architects. Uncomplicated and simple with a nod to everything Nordic, grey creates a modern space that’s ‘at one with nature’ and shuns anything artificial. It’s a versatile neutral backdrop.
Whilst you can achieve the grey look by allowing a quality timber to weather naturally, modern factory treatments ensure a high-performance product that has a uniform, professional finish.
One particularly popular wood protection system for achieving the grey look is S:iOOX, a patented wood modification system. It makes use of silicone nanotechnology to penetrate the wood, transforming its colour and bolstering its exterior durability. With S:iOOX, you can choose between light, medium and darker options.
3. Black — bold and urban
Black cladding is another on-trend urban design favourite, particularly for making a statement.
This look can be achieved through ‘Yakisugi’. Translating literally as ‘burned cedar’, this is a centuries-old Japanese method of wood preservation which involves charring the surface of the wood. The modern version of this would be Chartex® which involves taking a cladding board, structuring the grain with a wire brush to create texture, then applying a factory coated coal black wood stain.
It creates an undeniably arresting and eye-catching structure but with a more robust hard wearing finish that doesn’t flake!
Black cladding doesn’t have to dominate, either — consider using it as a flourish. When used sparingly, it can be surprisingly versatile. Bonus points for matching windows!
4. Light and golden — natural beauty in abundance
Another time-honoured favourite for house cladding is Siberian Larch. With characterful, versatile golden browns and yellows, it showcases natural timber at its best.
These golden tones work well in contemporary settings but with a spattering of knots and rich grain also can rest into a rural environment. Again, opt for a vertical profile for a more modern feel.
5. Medium brown — exotic and intriguing
For a slightly more tropical look, a darker brown theme can be achieved with thermally-treated timber cladding products like Thermo-Nordic Pine (ThermoWood®), Thermo-Tulipwood and Thermo-Ayous.
The modification process during their manufacture not only makes the wood more durable for exterior use, but imparts a versatile medium-brown colour. This mimics the look of tropical hardwoods (without any of the associated expense or environmental damage!).
Again, it’s easier to match these types of colours to your bricks, making for a seamless, stylish addition to your home’s exterior that won’t be too jarring.
6. Blue — cool as you like
Cool blue is certainly on trend — and it's not hard to understand why when you look at this bespoke Ayous cladding project in RAL 5014.
In fact, any colour is possible. Pale blue, terracotta red or an olive green shade might be the statement you’re after! Check out our Colourflex® range for some stylish options to set you apart on your project.
Just be sure to check with your local authority — choosing something that’s too out of keeping with the rest of the area could land you in hot water.
Chosen a cladding colour for your next project?
We offer a wide range of quality timber cladding. All of our wood is imported from sustainable sources and machined to profile by us, on site in North Yorkshire.
As well as offering untreated timber — great for showcasing timber at its resplendent natural best — we also offer professional factory finishing on all our cladding products. This allows us to produce any colour or finish that takes your fancy!
For more advice or to start your project, get in touch with our team using the button below.